Court judgements broken down into the case type, how the decision played out, and the lesson worth remembering — with the full judgement available as a PDF.
Land Acquisition Appeal · 2026:DHC:8039
Deadlines for filing appeals matter, and courts are unlikely to excuse very long, poorly-explained delays. A litigant who accepts a particular valuation or benchmark at the trial stage, without presenting evidence to the contrary, will generally not be allowed to seek a better outcome later on appeal.
Civil Miscellaneous (Main) Petition · 2026:DHC:8010
Even a short delay in responding to a summary suit can nearly cost a person their right to defend themselves in court. Even so, courts will usually give a genuine, honestly-explained short delay the benefit of the doubt rather than shutting the door entirely, especially when doing so avoids a decree being passed without a hearing on the actual merits.
Criminal Appeal · 2026:DHC:7989-DB
A conviction cannot rest on the "last seen together" circumstance alone, however suspicious it looks. The prosecution must build a complete, gap-free chain of evidence that leaves no reasonable possibility of innocence, and any genuine doubt must benefit the accused, not the prosecution.
Writ Petition (Civil) · 2026:DHC:8044
An employer, including a government body, cannot dismiss even a daily-wage or temporary worker as punishment for alleged wrongdoing without first giving them a fair, formal inquiry with a real chance to defend themselves; skipping that step can make the termination illegal regardless of how the employer labels it.
Regular Second Appeal · 2026:DHC:8003
When a special law like the Electricity Act sets up its own dedicated authority to resolve a particular type of dispute (here, compensation for unauthorised power lines), ordinary civil courts generally cannot step in even if the other side's conduct was clearly improper. The aggrieved person must go to that specific authority (District Magistrate/Police Commissioner) instead, and must also be ready to prove the actual amount of loss suffered, not just assert a claim.
First Appeal from Order · 2026:DHC:8047
A long gap between a person's death and a Will being taken to court for probate is not automatically suspicious if there's a reasonable family explanation for it; and a party who repeatedly fails to use the opportunities a court gives them to produce evidence cannot expect a second chance for the same evidence at the appeal stage.
Criminal Miscellaneous Case · 2026:DHC:8035
Where a genuine compromise is reached in a case involving non-serious, personal-dispute offences, courts can quash the FIR to spare both sides a lengthy trial, but only after the judge is personally satisfied that the settlement is voluntary and genuine, not merely on paper.
Writ Petition (Civil) · 2026:DHC:7977-DB
Being investigated twice over GST credit from the same supplier is not automatically illegal. The "same subject matter" protection only kicks in when both proceedings target the exact same contravention, so a genuine fraud probe can run independently of an earlier routine tax assessment.
Regular First Appeal · 2026:DHC:8014
In Indian property law, being physically absent from a jointly-inherited property does not by itself strip a family co-owner of their rightful share. The other occupants must prove they treated the absent owner as clearly and knowingly excluded, not just that they lived there without them.
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Legal Case Shots is a searchable database of Supreme Court of India judgments, each broken down into the case type, the court's key holding, and a practical lesson learnt, with the full judgment available as a PDF for citation or deeper reading.
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Nabha Power Limited was selected in 2009 to build a power plant supplying Punjab State Power Corporation Limited, under a competitive bidding process. Under the Mega Power Policy, qualifying projects get a customs duty exemption on imported equipment. The Government of India announced a policy relaxation via a press release on 1 October 2009 (removing the earlier requirement that a thermal plant be "inter-State" to qualify), but the formal notifications implementing it were only issued in December 2009, and Nabha Power's own project was certified with Mega Power status only on 30 July 2010. A dispute arose over the tariff/cost-pass-through implications of exactly when the exemption became available to this project, and the State Electricity Regulatory Commission and the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity both ruled that the benefit could apply only from 30 July 2010, not from the earlier press release date.
The Supreme Court held that a government press release announcing a policy change is not, by itself, a binding "order" or "law" that changes legal entitlements from its date: legal effect flows only from the actual notifications and certifications that formally implement a policy. Since the customs notification changes took effect only from 11 and 14 December 2009, and Nabha Power's specific project was certified as a Mega Power Project only on 30 July 2010, the company could not claim the tariff benefit of the exemption from the earlier press release date. The Court distinguished this from other precedents where a government had spoken with a single consistent voice extending a benefit from an earlier date, noting here there was no such continuous commitment specific to this project. The appeal was dismissed, upholding the concurrent findings of the regulatory bodies below.
An announcement of a policy change, even from the government, does not by itself create binding legal rights or amend a statutory notification; entitlements under a scheme take effect only from the date of the actual notification or certification implementing it, not from the date intent was announced.
